Heads, Elves and Ivanhoe

Okay, I’m twisted (did I just hear a chorus of “ya think???”) but when I sat down to ponder my favourite romantic moments—or favourite moments, period—they weren’t particularly hearts and flowers but they were compelling.

The hands-down top bizzaro romantic scene has to be in Margeurite de Valois, a Dumas novel that was made into a French-language film (nowhere as good as the book). It’s a semi-true sixteenth-century historical epic about a group of royals in the French court. A passionate and doomed love affair between the title character and her swain ends up with his beheading (the characters have the life span of gnats in this book). The scene I nominate as Top Weird Moment is Marguerite’s tender moment(s) with the severed head, which she keeps in a velvet bag as a tribute to their fatal love.

I had just had four impacted wisdom teeth removed prior to reading Marguerite, and I think the drugs might have clouded my perceptions, but there was something of a wild romantic sensibility few authors attempt these days.

A prettier episode is the Romantic Scene That Never Was. I love the farewell between Arwen and Strider in the film version of Lord of the Rings, even if most of it is in elvish. The scene was implied in the book, but never got the full treatment. Tolkien wasn’t much for love scenes or well-developed female characters, and this is one instance where a movie did add something to the book. This scene is important because we get a sense of what is at stake on a personal level for the two lovers. Arwen is going to sacrifice her immortality and her place among her people to be with the man she loves, and we need this moment to give weight to her decision.

But my All Time Favourite is from Ivanhoe, when the Templar knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert fights to save Rebecca, sacrificing his honour to prove her innocence. This is his turning point and redemption. He fights without any hope of a HEA or even chivalric brownie points. He protects her because love and his personal sense of right and wrong demand it. This may not be a “love scene” per se, but it’s romance at its best—love transforming a troubled character into someone more noble, someone who rises above the constraints of his society, someone worthy of our approbation. In one chapter, Bois-Guilbert moves from villain to good guy and has stayed on my fave heroes list ever since.